The Game, left, one of many hip-hop performers promoting the “gangsta” image

Filmmaker Byron Hurt, a life-long hip-hop fan, was watching
rap music videos on BET when he realized that each video
was nearly identical. Guys in fancy cars threw money at
the camera while scantily clad women danced in the background.
As he discovered how stereotypical rap videos had become,
Hurt, a former college quarterback turned activist, decided
to make a film about the gender politics of hip-hop, the
music and the culture that he grew up with. “The
more I grew and the more I learned about sexism and violence
and homophobia, the more those lyrics became unacceptable
to me,” he says. “And I began to become more
conflicted about the music that I loved.” The result
is HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a riveting documentary
that tackles issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and
homophobia in today’s hip-hop culture.

Sparking dialogue on hip-hop and its declarations on gender,
HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes provides thoughtful insight
from intelligent, divergent voices including rap artists,
industry executives, rap fans and social critics from
inside and outside the hip-hop generation. The film includes
interviews with famous rappers such as Mos Def, Fat Joe,
Chuck D and Jadakiss and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons;
along with commentary from Michael Eric Dyson, Beverly
Guy-Sheftall, Kevin Powell and Sarah Jones and interviews
with young women at Spelman College, a historically black
school and one of the nation’s leading liberal arts
institutions.

The film also explores such pressing issues as women and
violence in rap music, representations of manhood in hip-hop
culture, what today’s rap lyrics reveal to their
listeners and homoeroticism in hip-hop. A “loving
critique” from a self-proclaimed “hip-hop
head,” HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes discloses
the complex intersection of culture, commerce and gender
through on-the-street interviews with aspiring rappers
and fans at hip-hop events throughout the country.